Issue No. 7 (Fall 2011) of Inspire presents a "9/11 Special" celebrating the "The Greatest Special Operation of all time."

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Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula | Issue 7 | 9/11 SPECIAL

Inspire | FALL 1432 | 2011 | ISSUE 7

The Greatest Special Operation of all time

The Media Conflict | Iran and the Conspiracy Theories | A Decade in Pictures

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

YAHYA IBRAHIM, EDITOR IN CHIEF

We dedicate this special supplement to the great events of the Expeditions of Washington DC and New York, as Shaykh Usama would call it, or simply 9/11. As America mourns and we celebrate this glorious event, we look into what 9/11 means ten years on. We have all been touched one way or another by the attacks. They are a marking point in history. There was a world before 9/11 and another one, drastically different, post 9/11.

I remember one scholar was asked about the effects of the attacks right after they occurred. He said, “It is too early. Ask me ten years from now”. Well here we are ten years on and it is time for us to look into the effects of 9/11 on America and the world.

Shaykh Usama might be dead but his deeds are not. 9/11 has left a permanent scar on the American psyche and will live long after in the hearts of every American. The pain, suffering and agony that Shaykh Usama brought to America is fair payback for the pain, suffering and agony that America has brought to millions of Muslims around the world, in Palestine, in Iraq, in Afghanistan and elsewhere. America got part of what it deserves. The rest will be served by the heroic mujahidin who are continuing on the path of jihad until they achieve victory or meet their Creator.

9/11 was neither the beginning of the war between the Muslims and the West nor was it the end. It was merely an episode in a long, protracted war that started at the time of the Messenger of Allah and will end with al-Malhama, the epic battle mentioned in the hadith.

The story of 9/11 is the story of jihad. It is the story of a small band of men who were guided by Allah, made the intentions to fight, trained on the battlefields and then culminated their struggle with martyrdom to end up their short, but eventful lives, in meeting their Lord.

The 10th anniversary of 9/11 passed with the world commenting on it. We bring to you some of what the world was saying, and some of the images from that decade to remind our readers of that great day.

We ask Allah to shower His blessings on the nineteen brothers who fulfilled their duty and moved on and all those who participated in the planning of that glorious event and we ask Allah to grant us the strength to carry on the fight and to grant us victory against our enemies. Âmîn.

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Iran and the Conspiracy Theories

ABU SUHAIL, OPINION

There have been plenty of conspiracy theories surrounding the events of 9/11. These conspiracy theorists believe that the U.S. government manufactured the attacks while others believe that it was the Israeli Mossad who was behind them. They site claims such as the Pentagon was not hit by a plane but by a rocket, and that the World Trade center building number seven was brought down by a controlled demolition.

The prescribers to these theories have been some scattered individuals here and there who do not posses the research capabilities and capacities thats are only available to governments. However, there has been one exception: the government of Iran.

The Iranian government has professed on the tongue of its president Ahmadinejad that it does not believe that al Qaeda was behind 9/11 but rather, the U.S. government. So we may ask the question: why would Iran ascribe to such a ridiculous belief that stands in the face of all logic and evidence?

Since the start of the Iranian revolution, Iran wanted to project an image of anti- Americanism. This would serve as a rallying call for the millions of Muslims around the world who despise America for its aggression against them. Iran played this card very well and garnered a lot of support among the Muslims as being the country that is willing to stand up to America.

If Iran was genuine in its animosity towards the U.S., it would be pleased to see another entity striking a blow at the Great Satan but that’s not the case. For Iran, anti-Americanism is merely a game of politics. It is anti-America when it suits it and it is a collaborator with the U.S. when it suits it, as we have seen in the shameful assistance Iran gave to the U.S. in its invasion of Afghanistan and in the Shi`a of Iraq, backed by Iran, bringing the American forces into the country and welcoming them with open arms.

Therefore with 9/11, the Iranians saw a great operation that had brought damage to the U.S. like nothing they had ever dreamed of causing during their two decades in power. For them, al Qaeda was a competitor for the hearts and minds of the disenfranchised Muslims around the world. Al Qaeda, an organization under fire, with no state, succeeded in what Iran couldn’t. Therefore it was necessary for the Iranians to discredit 9/11 and what better way to do so? Conspiracy theories.

Iran and the Shi`a in general do not want to give al Qaeda credit for the greatest and biggest operation ever committed against America because this would expose their lip-service jihad against the Great Satan.

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Don’t let America become great in your eyes

SHAYKH USAMA BIN LADIN, MANHAJ REVIEW

In reality,[1] the Islamic ummah is the greatest of human power if it truly establishes the religion of Islam, and that is exactly what history proved throughout the past centuries. This nation is able to battle and resist what are known as superior countries.

O people do not let America’s front and its troops seem hard and become great in your eyes, as we have struck them – by Allah – repeatedly and they were defeated frequently and they are the most cowardly at the time of encounter. It became clear to us through our resistance and fighting against the American enemy that it mainly depends on psychological warfare. That’s because it possesses vast propaganda tools, and uses intensive air force bombing which demonstrates their points of weaknesses which are fear, cowardliness, and an absence of a fighting spirit in the American soldier. […]

A small number of Islam’s youth were able — despite the international allied forces standing in their way — to establish the evidence on the people with relation to the ability of resisting and fighting what are called the Superpowers. They were able to defend their religion and benefit the cases of their ummah more than what the governments and nations of fifty countries in the Islamic world could do. This is a consequence of them taking jihad as a way to support the religion.

Note:

1. The following is taken from Tawjihât al-Manhajîyyah.

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Coming Soon: The Arab Intifada: Hopes, Concerns & Dangers

An Exclusive Interview with Adam Yahiye Gadahn (Azzam al-Amriki)

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Hear the World

COLIN POWELL, Fmr U.S. Sec. of State (al-Jazeera):

"It turned out as we discovered later that a lot of the sourcing that had been attested to by the intelligence community (on WMD’s in Iraq) was wrong. Imagine how I felt the day that they finally came in and said to me well you know we don’t have four independent sources for that biological warfare van; it’s one guy and he’s loopy and he’s in a German jail and we’ve never talked to him. [...] And six months later the intelligence community is still standing behind their original judgments even though nothing has been found.”

BRUCE HOFFMAN, Professor (The Image War):

"If you couldn’t come to Afghanistan or Pakistan or Yemen or some country where al Qaeda had a training base, you didn’t have to. You could just read one of al Qaeda’s online magazines and acquire perhaps not to the same degree of professionalism or sophistication that you would have received in a terrorist training camp, but nonetheless still acquire the modicum of the fundamental skills needed to be a terrorist.”

TOM FRIEDMAN, The New York Times (Charlie Rose):

"Bin Ladin really messed us up. We both wasted the first decade of the 21st century. So the hole is deeper and yet political power is more defuse so no one can aggregate enough political power to make the right moves, to take the right steps to generate what we need to get out of this (financial) hole."

MARWAN SHEHADEH, Islamic Movements Expert (The Image War):

"Parallel to the security, military and political wars.... there is the media war which could be fiercer than the security and military ones.”

MICHAEL SCHEUER, CIA 1982-2004 (al-Jazeera):

"Our political leaders are still fighting an enemy that doesn't exist. They think, in a rather racist way, that the Muslim world is mad at Americans because we have freedom, and liberty and women in the workplace; and not because we are the unflinching supporters of Israel, because we support the Saudi police state, because we have troops in the Arab Peninsula, in Iraq and other places. So really no matter how big the intelligence community gets in the United States, as long as U.S. foreign policy remains what it is, the enemy will continue to grow in numbers and probably lethality. [...] If you listen to President Obama or former President Bush, it's still that they hate us for our freedoms and our liberties, and we're going to kill them or capture them one at a time. And yet we killed Usama bin Ladin in this age of celebrity; we think that ended a big part of the war. Well, while we focused on Bin Ladin, al Qaeda expanded from basically being an Afghanistan-centric group to being still in parts of Afghanistan, in a big part of Pakistan, in Yemen, across North Africa, Somalia, Iraq and Palestine."

LAWERENCE WILKERSON, Fmr Chief of Staff to U.S. Sec. of State (al-Jazeera):

"This was an administration that had many leaders; my boss among them. It did not have a central leader unlike what the President has said in his memoirs and in his statements. I think he really recovered in his second administration and became a leader, but in the first Dick Cheney and others were really leading; and when you have an administration like that, people go everywhere. You have people at defense who are fighting a war for Israel. You have people at defense who were fighting a war to bring freedom and democracy to the Middle East, whatever that means. You had people who were afraid genuinely of al Qaeda and had been convinced by the Vice President and others that al Qaeda was connected with Baghdad, which was patently false. But the real reason I think we moved the juggernaut of military force to Iraq was 200-300 billion barrels of oil which we now know lies under the desert. Prime Minister Maliki is going to be, he says, in seven years at 13 million barrels per day production capacity; that surpasses Saudi Arabia. And with the Saudi’s essentially depleting their oil fields, it’s the future. So I know why we went to war in Iraq.”

CLIVE STAFFORD SMITH, Director, Reprieve (The Secret War on Terror):

"It would be absurd to say that torture never gets a result that’s true; of course it does. I mean I could torture you and get your name very quickly. But the first question you always have to ask is this: is torturing someone making the world safer or is it actually inspiring people, that we’re such hypocrites about democracy and the rule of law, that they hate us more? Now you cannot look at the last ten years and say that what we did in Guantanamo Bay and the torture that we’ve done elsewhere has made the world safer; that’s just an untenable position.”

"They (7/7 London bombers) weren’t people pushed out by the al Qaeda organization, they were people pulled into the revolution. And that represented for me an indication that the revolution was spreading and that we were in this for the long haul.”

BERND GREINER, German Historian & Political Scientist (DW-TV):

"They [the Americans] followed a strategy called “scare the Muslim”. In other words to intimidate the Muslim world so it would never again even be tempted to support terrorist groups let alone a terrorist attack on the United States.”

WILLIAM LANGEWIESCHE, Intl Corr., Vanity Fair (France 24):

"The United States is fundamentally changed in the, sort of, mass and somewhat cowardly pursuit of safety at all costs. This (9/11) has essentially been a cowardly reaction and I hope its temporary. […] Take the hit and move on; stop moaning about it.”

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The Media Conflict

Samir Khan

I remember his advice being spot-on as I stood there nearly two years ago in front of AQAP’s Amir, Shaykh Abu Basir, may Allah preserve him. “Remember,” he said as other mujahidin were busy working on their computers in the background. “The media work is half of the jihad.”

He was repeating the words of Shaykh Usama; words that reminded me of an unspoken of world that has shaped the lives of millions of people across the globe thanks to a few people on their computers and the men who fulfill their promises to Allah. Back in America, I knew the media jihad was important to the mujahidin; but I just wasn’t able to put my finger on how important it was to them. Just then a brother intervened and confirmed, “A powerful media production is as hard hitting as an operation in America.” It was the first time I met individuals who were so ideologically enveloped in the media effort against America and the West.

It was also the first time that my mind opened up to the comprehensiveness of the media jihad highlighting its serious authority and impact upon the world. In addition to that, it laid out to me the importance of all the roles in the media jihad effort and that there isn’t one role that is sufficient enough to drive it. And although the mujahidin are considered to be the underdogs in the war, it goes without saying that we have thrown something at America and her allies which they will forever be stuck with; Tony Blair rightfully described that in his interview with the BBC when discussing the war against the mujahidin. “We have learned how to fight it but we haven’t destroyed its ideology,” he said. “We haven’t destroyed, which I think is the far bigger problem now; this is where I would view things differently now than ten years ago; I think the problem that we have is that the narrative that they have, the story about Islam and its relations with the West, and the role of religion in society; that narrative has far greater reach and scope than we thought.” The credible ideas that we bring is what intimidates them the most. People may be susceptible to an end, but ideas are bulletproof and have an outstanding lifespan.

The events of September left America in a bottomless predicament, forcing it to shoot at something that doesn’t die. When the planes hit the Pentagon and the World Trade towers, America was forced to stand defeated; there was nothing to shoot back at. Then by swiftly invading Afghanistan in hopes that their prayers would be answered of getting revenge and wiping out once and for all the cause of their misery, it instead kept the river streaming.

America’s subtle hatred for Islam drastically helps us

This century has experienced a conflict that has never been fought before. It has gone through plenty of military clashes and intelligence crusades, but it has never until now gone through a battle that has quickly revolutionized the way millions of people view warfare. It is this oddity that we have all come to know of: the media conflict.

When I look to those enemies that actually acknowledge our victory in this field, I feel that there’s always an important element missing in that confession; that is, once it’s won in the beginning, its branches will never be chopped off in the end. This is especially true seeing the climate the ummah is currently in throughout the world. A peek into the oppression and aggression in Palestine and East Turkestan – amongst the many other Muslim countries, the revolutions sweeping the carpet from the tyrants, and the growing anti-American anti-Western sentiments, the ideology of Islam can only flourish.

Too bad our enemy and many of the independent media giants equate al Qaeda’s ideology with only and only terrorism; by forgetting the fact that our entire makeup and culture is Islam and that our understanding of practically everything is deeply embedded in juristic works and that Islam is only what we prefer for the people to follow, they end up missing the street at every corner: by criticizing us and misplacing our ideas, they end up insulting millions of those Muslims who know and practice Islam. Try to guess in whose favor that goes into?

Take a simple example. The word shari`ah is always identified with barbarism in the media and that defending it — like the stoning or chopping off of the hands — becomes a breach of the “universal human rights” code. Honestly, how often is the shari`ah looked at from a positive and open-minded perspective in the media? When the Muslim Brotherhood’s (MB) leader was interviewed by Fareed Zakaria on his GPS program, he was asked in a disturbed manner if they would support the shari`ah which makes two women’s testimonies equal to a single testimony of a man — thus indirectly attacking Islam in the question itself. The MB leader went into another direction leaving an embarrassing impression on the Muslim onlookers.

The priceless thing though is that it’s a damn if you do, damn if you don’t situation. Either way, it would help Islam thus empowering the mujahidin globally. Criticizing us for adhering to the shari’ah hurts them in the long run and making the shari`ah look good gives us a boost.

As we pointed out, this media conflict between the West and the mujahidin quickly became a war of Western secular ideology and Islam. Shaykh Usama intended to attack the West to point out to the world America’s police-state foreign policy upon the Muslim world and not the West’s corrupt secular principles. But because the West was ardent to point out the mujahidin’s attachment to Islam as extreme, portraying them as “fundamentalists,” Muslims throughout the world asked: “Wait, are they not then concluding that a good practicing Muslim is their fundamentalist enemy?” Zakir Naik, the popular television personality who is known for his religious debates and runs the PeaceTV network, has repeatedly echoed, “Every Muslim should be a fundamentalist as a fundamentalist is one who sticks to the fundamentals of Islam.” This attack led by America on the mujahidin’s adherence to Islam was one of the main reasons that led to the defacement of their legitimacy in the eyes of millions of Muslims. To this day, America has still failed to realize that.

With that said, Our ideology is durable and formidable because of reasons related to our media jihad and the mistakes of the West. With Allah’s help, we are where we are today chiefly due to four reasons.

1 The hardworking tech brothers

There were namely three things that the brothers focused on in their media efforts: quality and content of productions, Internet security and a media dissemination strategy. While America was focused on battling our mujahidin in the mountains of Afghanistan and the streets of Iraq, the jihadi media and its supporters were in fifth gear. Thousands of productions were produced and dispersed to both the net and real world. Something that was produced thousands of feet above in the mountains of Afghanistan was found distributed in the streets of London and California. Ideas that disseminated from the lips of the mujahidin’s leaders were carried out in Madrid and Times Square.

2 America’s failure to respond

Not only was America too late in responding, but they never took up the opportunity to respond to what they labeled as “al Qaeda propaganda.” How can people believe it to be genuine propaganda when America’s in-depth response is nowhere to be found? By never responding to our videos, books, and other media productions, they quickly lost the edge. We preached that America’s foreign policy is highly objectionable in Islamic law, thus forcing us to act accordingly.

By never opening the door of debate with us, we continue to rein supreme and the layers of bullet proof vests multiplied over our line of thought. Because there wasn’t anything remotely scholarly coming from America, al Qaeda and its supporters turned their focus to the scholars for dollars in the Muslim countries that have now, for a long time, badly lost the debate.

The only thing America would do in this regards was to use its typical argument that they were attacked for their freedoms and whatnot. Over the past few years, a lot of people have lost belief in this reasoning citing that the real reason is found in al Qaeda’s media; that the actual underlying purpose is U.S. Foreign Policy. To that effect, former CIA agent Michael Scheuer said regarding al Qaeda on al- Jazeera’s “The Image War”: “Their propaganda beats us to hell every time, every time. We’re not even in the same league with them.”

3 American blunders

The countless major blunders on behalf of the American administration swiftly destroyed their image to the world as champions of human rights. Baroness Manningham- Buller, former Director General of the MI5, was asked on BBC’s “The Secret War on Terror,” in light of America’s torture of detainees: “Did torture play into the hands of al Qaeda?” She answered, “It’s a propaganda coup for them (al Qaeda) to be able to say that the West with its much wanted principles adopts these techniques.”

Besides the many other political and military blunders, America had done one thing which was a part and parcel of their democracy: let their hate mongering preachers and right wing groups loose on Islam; this is the inherent problem with a democracy. They hypocritically say they love the Muslims and Islam and then stab us in the back saying, “And our freedom allows us to malign your religion; what a great and free country this is!”

Although the government is not directly linked to these individuals and groups, the fact that their laws allow such people to preach blasphemy against our religion — keeping in mind that it was during a time when America needed the Muslim world’s support the most — it caused their glass house to shatter from the inside. Witnessing thousands of offended Afghani’s repeatedly protesting throughout the capital on different occassions of blasphemous offenses against Islam in American and Western societies was what cost them the battle for the hearts and minds.

4 U.S. in the eyes of the Muslims

It can be safely asserted that by nature , the Muslim world holds America with suspicion. It is not rare to find in a typical Muslim household in America, for example, that has at least one member that holds something against the American government, even if that person is inherently secular.

I’ve personally attended mosques in over ten States in America; and in all of them, one will always be able to categorize a large group of Muslims as having anti-American sentiments even if they aren’t that practicing. If I were to add the experiences of my friends who visited mosques in other parts of the country, it really becomes clear just how far reaching this is. This is America; how about then Europe and the Muslim world at large?

The media conflict is the symbol of Islam’s nascency in the modern world. We exhibit Islam and they exhibit man-made failure. This battle is going to continue until they find themselves powerless under our dominion. .And indeed Our soldiers! They will be the victors!. [37: 173]

“We preached that America’s foreign policy is highly objectionable in Islamic law, thus forcing us to act accordingly. By never opening the door of debate with us, we continue to rein supreme and the layers of bullet proof vests multiplied over our line of thought.”

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The Greatest Special Operation of all Time: The Expeditions of Washington D.C. and New York

YAHYA IBRAHIM

The 9/11 operations are the greatest operation in the history of mankind. Nineteen mujahidin succeeded in inflicting human and financial losses against the enemy in a way that was unprecedented. Ten years on we look into some of the direct and indirect consequences of this glorious event.

The operations of 9/11 came as a result of decades of American aggression. They follow half a century of American support for the state of Israel. Without this American support, the Israeli occupation of the Holy Land would have been impossible. America had attacked Iraq and subjected it to an embargo that led to the deaths of at least a million and half Iraqis. America desecrated the Arabian Peninsula, the land of Muhammad and the two Holy Mosques, with its soldiers. It supported the authoritarian regimes that it is now disavowing after they passed their expiry dates and where supporting them was becoming an untenable position. This was the backdrop of the operations of 9/11.

Millions of Muslims around the world celebrated 9/11. It was a healing for the hearts of many who suffered because of America’s greed. In Palestine, Yemen, Indonesia, Pakistan, and elsewhere Muslims took to the streets to celebrate this heroic operation.

Ten years on, what have the operations achieved? What are the consequences of 9/11 on America and the world at large?

Around three thousand Americans have lost their lives in the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and Pennsylvania. Nineteen gallant mujahidin who gave up their lives for Allah brought about this death toll. Never in history has such a small number of fighters brought about such damage to an enemy. The targets themselves have also been exceptional: the symbols of American economic power and the Pentagon, both institutions that were, and still are, leading the war on Islam and Muslims.

Three thousand were killed because of the operation of 9/11 but because of American arrogance, it went throwing its weight around the Muslim world, starting two wars which added another few thousand to the death toll. We are not listing the American narration of the number of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan because according to our sources, there is a definite underestimate of the real numbers. Our mujahidin brothers in Iraq for example, would tell us that they would engage the U.S. army and confirm the deaths of U.S. soldiers and yet, there would be an announcement by the U.S. army that would completely distort the facts.

Between four to six trillion dollars have been wasted on both wars according to Professor Linda Bilmes from the Harvand Kennedy School. That is between 30 to 40% of the U.S. deficit. So the wars of Afghanistan and Iraq have both been fought by borrowing money. This means that the damage isn’t over as it would be with a war that was already paid for; rather, it would carry on as long as America is still in debt. It is a likely scenario that the U.S. has got itself so deep in trouble because of the war on al Qaeda that it would bring its demise, first economically and then militarily. If that is the case, the wars of Afghanistan and Iraq would have been the single most important factors in the downfall of the United States of America.

We have been preaching that the West is propping up values such as equality, freedom and human rights as a façade to cover its real face of imperialism and greed, but 9/11 did what was impossible for our words to do. It showed the world the reality and exposed the West for what it really is. Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and secret extraordinary renditions showed the world the American understanding of human rights. The Patriot Act and the treatment of Muslims in America and the West showed the world the reality of Western proclamation of equality. The limits placed on the rights of Muslims to express their beliefs revealed that in the West you are only free if you are not a Muslim. It is my belief that this achievement of 9/11 constitutes one of the greatest victories of 9/11. This is because it would have been difficult to pursue the battle with the West when it was hiding its true face from the masses of the Muslims. Even though many forms of aggression were committed before 9/11, but what happened post-9/11 brought the case to a different level. “Basically Bin Ladin said jump,” said Michael Scheuer in an episode of al-Jazeera’s 9/11 Decade series entitled “The Image War”. “Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney said how high?”

“It is a likely scenario that the U.S. has got itself so deep in trouble because of the war on al Qaeda that it would bring its demise, first economically and then militarily.”

Shaykh Usama gave his famous oath that America and her allies shouldn’t dream of enjoying security when the Muslims don’t. The added security in America and the West, the incurred costs, the inconveniences and forced changes it brought to the lives of Americans is another victory of 9/11. Americans are now forced to go through strict security measures in airports and billions of dollars are being spent on counter-terrorism in America and Europe. The operations of Omar al-Farouk and the parcel bombs played an important role in bringing such measures but it was 9/11 that set the ball in motion. To see the old American woman narrate her suffering at the hands of security officials and the mother at what she saw as a molestation of her child by the new enhanced pat down measures is to see the fulfillment of Shaykh Usama’s oath.

Before 9/11, there was a myth, a fairy tale, called the Western intelligence services. People held the CIA, the FBI and the MI5 to be omnipotent. Hollywood played a role in that with all of its Bonds and Mission Impossibles. The myth was so strong that so many conspiracy theories surrounded them and any significant event or plot on the world stage would be attributed to them. 9/11 shattered that myth forever. It not only exposed the intelligence services for not being omnipotent but it exposed them for being impotent. Such a huge special operation was hatched right under the noses of the intelligence services and yet they failed to get a sniff of it. The spooks were taken by surprise. “We didn’t see this one coming,” said Art Cummings, former Head of U.S. National Security. “We didn’t have good intelligence of what was going to happen. We were very worried that there was a possible second operation.”

Ten years from 9/11 and the mujahidin have spread out from Afghanistan to Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, North Africa and God willing the list will grow and the proliferation of jihad will continue. Ten years from 9/11 and the U.S. is suffering economically, is weaker militarily, is wary of war, and is suffering an image battering around the world.

For us it’s just a matter of time. The question is not whether America will fall or not. America is already falling; it just didn’t hit the ground yet.

"Basically Bin Ladin said jump and Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney said how high?"

-- Michael Scheuer

Indeed your brothers in Palestine are eagerly awaiting; awaiting that you annihilate America & Israel. The land of Allah is vast and their interests are widespread. So exert your utmost in wrecking them so that Allah’s word becomes triumphant.

-- Shaykh Usama bin Ladin

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A DECADE IN PICTURES: FROM 9/11 TILL TODAY

A GREAT AND POWERFUL NATION, isolated from the rest of the world by two great oceans, America believed it could carry on with an imperialistic policy in the Muslim world without suffering the consequences. 9/11 proved America wrong. America’s evil would come back to haunt it. Following 9/11, George W. Bush promised a war on Islam and Muslims, which he termed the “War on Terror”. He also forecasted that this war would be a long one. Here we look into the main events and consequences of what is turning out to be an epic conflict between the Muslims and the West.

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